Once every ten years, the IUCN hosts a World Parks Congress that brings together the largest global assembly of protected area specialists, managers and experts to focus on the state of the planet's protected areas, the challenges they face and the opportunities before them. The World Parks Congress acts as a catalyst for global protected area action and recommends future directions for these special places. The Vth IUCN World Parks Congress was held in Durban, South Africa from 8 to 17 September, 2003.

The challenge before the 2003 Congress was to demonstrate how protected areas are relevant to the broader economic, social and environmental agenda for humankind in the 21st Century, and the theme of the Congress "Benefits Beyond Boundaries" responded to this challenge. The Congress was organized on the basis of plenary sessions and seven focussed workshop streams.

The organizers of the Vth World Parks Congress decided early in the preparatory process that governance of protected areas would be one of the seven workshop streams. This decision reflected recognition of the importance of governance – the interactions among structures, processes and traditions that determine how power and responsibilities are exercised, how decisions are taken and how citizens have their say – and its relevance to protected areas. The establishment and management of parks and other areas set aside for conservation has traditionally focused on biological considerations, but it is increasingly recognized that social, political, institutional and equity considerations must be considered if such areas are to achieve biodiversity conservation goals as well as contribute to equity and other broader societal objectives. Governance provides a useful framework within which to consider the interplay of these factors and to strive for better decision-making for both conservation and people.

The governance stream was also envisioned as a venue to explore and celebrate the dramatic growth of new and varied types of protected areas. These include protected areas based in co-management arrangements between local communities and state agencies, community conserved areas managed by indigenous and local communities, privately owned protected areas, NGO involvement in protected area management, and transboundary protected areas. The stream proved rich in opportunities to hear about and learn from these new arrangements, as reflected in the papers and presentations assembled here.

The inclusion of the governance stream in the Congress is also testament to the innovative approaches that have been adopted by many protected areas government agencies. Increased emphases on transparency, accountability and decentralization of decision-making to empower stakeholders that are most affected by management decisions are the hallmarks of many of these new approaches. In the lead up to the Congress there was global interest in knowing what aspects of these new approaches have proven successful and what lessons could be learned. The governance stream provided an interactive forum for discussion and sharing of these experiences and this volume of papers and presentations contributes to the wider distribution of information on the range of innovative approaches protected area agencies have adopted.

As the protected area community turns its attention to new frontiers for conservation, especially in the marine environment including the high seas, many new management issues arise, particularly those of governance. In some cases, such as with marine areas beyond national jurisdiction, the challenge is to identify an appropriate governance arrangement. Managing coastal and marine protected areas within the context of a larger ocean governance system is another challenge. How local communities, fishers, shipping interests and other stakeholders are involved in marine protected area decision making is an important issue if the area is be managed effectively. The governance stream responded to this new interest in marine protected areas, and provided a forum to examine promising governance approaches, such as integrating coastal and marine protected areas into larger management regimes and developing a forward-looking agenda for marine protected areas that includes a governance component.

Finally, global trends have a major impact on how decisions are made and these have a profound impact on governance of protected areas. On one hand, greater devolution of power from the centre to regional and local levels of government is occurring. At the other end of the scale, governments that are parties to multilateral environmental agreements like the World Heritage Convention increasingly recognise that protected areas are part of an international responsibility. These global changes and their impacts on decision making were a catalyst for sessions addressing ways to balance both local and global concerns in managing protected areas. Technological advances also have a profound impact on protected areas management. The Internet, for example puts citizens just a click away from decision-makers. It empowers people who can then demand accountability from decision makers.

This range of governance issues and the sheer number of sessions in the Governance Stream at the Congress has resulted in a significant volume of research and analysis and leading edge thinking on what is an increasingly important topic for protected areas worldwide. In an effort to share this work, profile case studies and document lessons learned more widely with practitioners and decision makers, Parks Canada as a co-lead on the Governance Stream in conjunction with IUCN, has compiled the papers and presentations from the stream onto this CD-ROM. This compilation is designed also to make a contribution to the growing literature in the field of environmental governance.

The CD also includes the significant outputs of the Governance Stream that emerged through discussion and dialogue at the Congress. Seven recommendations on issues such as good governance of protected areas, and co-management of protected areas were debated and approved through a series of synthesis workshops on the last day of the Stream and later adopted at the final plenary session of the Congress. Important ideas and policy guidance also emerged from the workshop stream, including recognition of the critical role that good governance plays in achieving both conservation objectives and societal well-being and the diversity of governance types. These ideas influenced and were reflected in the statements of commitment in the Durban Accord and Action Plan.

The Message of the Congress to the Convention on Biological Diversity made a strong statement on key actions to promote good governance and contributed to a decision of the parties to the CBD at their 7th meeting in February 2004 to adopt a program of work on protected areas that includes a discrete program element on Governance, Participation, Equity and Benefit Sharing. This serves as a legacy to the fresh ideas, new perspectives and innovative thinking by many people from around the world that came together and contributed to the success of the Governance Workshop Stream.

Another important influence of the workshop stream was the attention paid to governance at the 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress in 2004, where a motion was adopted requesting all IUCN Commissions to coordinate and collaborate with each other and the secretariat to provide leadership and support in advancing good governance of natural resources for conservation and sustainable development and to formulate and implement specific initiatives on governance. The World Commission on Protected Areas has acted on this motion and has included protected area governance as a strategic direction in its 2004-08 Strategic Plan.

A CD cannot adequately capture the spirit and ambience of the Congress, so it is worth noting the high level of energy and interest that characterized the governance workshop stream. Presenters and participants in the workshop contributed actively and with enthusiasm and there was passionate and heartfelt debate on many topics, especially on issues of equity, the role of indigenous communities, and the need to embrace moral and ethical principles in the establishment and management of protected areas. The evaluation results for the workshop stream showed that the majority of the workshop objectives were perceived as having been fully addressed by more than two thirds of all questionnaire respondents.

Special efforts were made throughout the workshop to encourage participation through an interactive space that provided opportunities to record comments, replies and suggestions. The stream also featured an original theatre piece produced by the renowned SEKA Malambo Drama Group of Zambia, illustrating key protected area governance issues from the perspective of an African community. A two-day short course on Participatory Governance Evaluation enabled participants to discuss and experience key issues in governance and learn how to carry out their own field-based governance evaluation.

We are hopeful that this compilation will be useful and that the papers and presentations included on the CD will stimulate further interest and research in this important field and contribute to good governance and the benefits of good governance to both people and biodiversity.